


Barriers

by ebonynemesis



Category: Naruto
Genre: High School Student Naruto, M/M, Naruto would still look cute as a carrot-top is all I'm sayin, One Shot, Smoking, Teacher Kakashi, hair-dying accidents, knksummer2020, modern!AU, reference to minor character death, subtle angst, unresolved daddy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonynemesis/pseuds/ebonynemesis
Summary: Kakashi tries not be a bad influence, he really tries.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 86
Collections: KAKANARU SUMMER EVENTS





	Barriers

‘I didn't know you smoked, Kakashi-sensei.’ Naruto said.

Kakashi turned, he had forgotten to close the balcony door. He took one look at Naruto and started laughing. 

Though Naruto had washed a lot of the red off, some of it still lingered. His blond locks were now a shade of yellowish-copper. Kakashi held his stomach. ‘Oh it’s a good thing your favourite colour is orange, Naruto. You’ll be a carrot head for a while, at least until your next haircut.’ 

‘I looked it up on my phone, and it said I might need bleach.’ Naruto pouted, stepping out onto the balcony to stand next to Kakashi. ‘Which sounds dangerous. I mean, isn’t bleach something you use to clean toilets? But it’s better than sporting orange hair, I guess.’ 

‘Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you went ginger.’ Kakashi reached out and ruffled Naruto’s still-wet hair. 

Naruto pushed his hand off as he shook his head, flinging water everywhere. There were faded spots of red dye behind his ear. 

‘Before you decide to put more chemicals in your hair, you should ask Kushina-san to take you to a salon this weekend. Clearly you can't be trusted with dyeing your own hair.’ 

Naruto glared, his lips hardened into a thin line, as Kakashi sighed. ‘Ok, fine, I can take you myself instead.’ 

Naruto didn’t agree, or disagree, or even acknowledge Kakashi’s offer. He took the cigarette from Kakashi’s hand, examining it as he experimentally held it between his middle and forefinger. ‘Since when do you smoke, sensei? It’s bad for your health, you know.’ 

Kakashi shrugged. ‘I’m aware of what it does to my—’ Naruto lifted the cigarette towards his lips and Kakashi stopped him with a touch to his wrist, 'I’m also aware why this would be a terrible idea.’ 

Naruto gave him a look, his newly dyed hair glowed like the amber on the end of the cigarette. His eyes were still puffy and red-rimmed that indicated he had been crying. Kakashi remembered Kushina’s voice on the call he received just moments before Naruto had knocked on his door, dripping red on his floor before he ushered him into the bathroom. 

_' Just, don’t let him run off anywhere else, please, Kakashi-kun…’_

Kakashi had been flustered that she had pleaded with him and sighed as he lowered his hand. 

He was probably never cut out to be anyone’s mentor. 

‘Ok, fine, you can have one drag, but no more, and only if you promise me you won’t do it again without my supervision.’ 

Naruto scoffed, and turned to look out at the cityscape as he pressed the filter against his lower lip. ‘You’re not my dad.’ He said, sucking in slowly. 

He didn’t splutter or cough and for a moment Kakashi suspected if he had previous experience only for Naruto to hold the butt away from him, eyebrows and nose scrunching together as he made a face. 

‘Tastes awful.’ 

Kakashi grinned, and took the cigarette from him, snubbing it out in the ashtray balanced on the balcony railing. 

‘I never said it was good.’ 

Naruto leaned forward, his torso against the railing. ‘If it’s not good, why do adults like it?’ 

‘Why did you dye your hair?’ Kakashi asked in turn, instead of answering. 

Naruto’s eyelids lowered, his lips disappearing between the line that was his mouth. The complexity of his expression was so foreign that Kakashi couldn’t reconcile that this was the same bundle of quivering mess that Kushina had deposited in Kakashi’s arms, when she asked that Kakashi take her son outside with him when the baby’s crying became too disruptive to the ceremony. 

He didn’t always like Naruto. To be more accurate, he was never quite at ease with the child. As a toddler Naruto had been too attached: called him _‘Kashi-niichan’_ in his nasal, high-pitched voice; used to follow him around all day like a tail, an attachment he couldn’t shake off from his leg, pestering him until Kakashi got so annoyed he lost his cool.

Kakashi remembered that one day he was so fed up, he had told Naruto to be quiet and then locked Naruto in a bathroom, nly to become preoccupied and forgetting to let Naruto out until well into the evening. When he finally opened the door he had found Naruto with a broken wrist, having slid from when he tried to reach for the door handle by standing on the rim of the bathtub, but had refrained from calling out for help. 

Kakashi called a cab and hurried him to the hospital, white faced with his heart in his throat, as Naruto clung to him. 

‘You told me that I should not make noises, Kashi-niichan.’ He had said when Kakashi asked why Naruto didn’t yell for help. 

Kakashi held him with trembling arms. ‘You tell me next time, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter what I say, ok?’ 

‘But,’ the blue eyes welled over with tears, ‘I didn’t know whether you were going to come or not. I don’t know if you’ll disappear if I ever got angry. Maybe my dad never came because he was angry—’ 

‘I promise.’ Kakashi had practically smothered the small child as he pressed Naruto’s head into his chest. 

_‘Yakusoku da yo…’_

He wanted to eat his own words from back then, as the orange-haired Naruto was making him think of things. Forbidden thoughts that he buried deep within him. Sentiments that he disclosed to no-one—not even to Obito or Rin, before they left for the states for good after the wedding. Ponderings that his brain decided now was a good time to engage as he watched the lights of the city pass over the contours of Naruto’s face, casting angular shadows that etched his features, so they looked more like the visage of an adult. 

‘Sensei, do you think dad ever got teased, by being a blond?’ 

Kakashi's heart stopped for a millisecond. ‘Was that what happened to you?’ 

Naruto continued in lieu of answering. ‘I doubt it. He was the top of his class and was in all those sports teams, there are still photos of him in our school’s trophy case. He wasn’t a loser, like his son…’ 

Kakashi grabbed Naruto’s head, pinching the back of his neck as he bent and touched his forehead to Naruto’s wet, orange strands. ‘You’re not a loser, Naruto, and you shouldn’t compare yourself to him. You are your own person and—’ He stopped when Naruto reciprocated his touch with a gentle nudge.

Naruto turned but he wasn’t looking at Kakashi’s eyes, instead those blue eyes were focused lower, on Kakashi’s lips; possibly wondering if they tasted like the bitter tobacco of adulthood. A hot palm pressed against Kakashi’s stomach, then twisted his shirt in a firm grip, who felt his own muscles tense under the touch. 

Naruto tilted his head and leaned in. 

The hot night wind blew across the twelfth-storey-balcony as Kakashi slid a hand between their lips, blocking off access, so that Naruto’s lips landed on his palm instead. 

‘You shouldn’t.’ Kakashi said, pushing Naruto back. 

Naruto grabbed Kakashi’s wrist, smiled cheekily as he licked at the centre of Kakashi’s palm. ‘I promise I won’t do it without your supervision, sensei.’ Kakashi had never noticed before how much larger Naruto’s hands had gotten—the same size as his own, with big knuckles, and restrained tenderness. 

Kakashi coughed, and took a step back. ‘Maa…’ He said retracting his hand and rubbing his wrist where Naruto had held him, his thumb pressing into the palm, where the imprint of Naruto’s lips scalded as if he snubbed out the cigarette there instead of in the ashtray. ‘That’s not exactly—’ 

‘I’m not him.’ 

Kakashi looked up, shocked, his face paling. 

‘I’ve never been anything like him.’ Naruto stared at his own hand, flexing it, before dropping it to his side, his head lowered. ‘And it hurts both you and mum, knowing how different we are, despite how much I resemble him. Even after I dye my hair and it turned orange, you still can’t help but see him in me.’ 

Kakashi shook his head, ‘It’s not because of that, Naruto, I, you shouldn’t be having—’ 

‘Why not?’ Naruto looked up, his face a mask of pleading pain and the wide eyes made him look so young that Kakashi made cower, physically backing away from him. ‘Why do you get to tell me how I feel?’ 

Kakashi shook his head, he was now on the precipice between the floor tiles on the balcony and the tatami covered interior. He took a definitive step back. 

‘It’s wrong, those feelings.' Kakashi said, retreating into the living room, out of the balcony, Naruto glared, but did not follow. 'And, and I’m not saying this because it has anything to do with Minato-sensei—’ 

‘Maybe I should stay ginger.’ Naruto snapped, slamming the balcony door between them, trapping himself outside, blocking Kakashi out. He turned his back to Kakashi, and picked up Kakashi’s lighter by the ashtray.

Kakashi reached for the handle, and stopped, staring at his semi-transparent reflection overlaid over the nightscape and the view of the back of Naruto’s orange head. 

‘It’s the exact opposite, Naruto.’ He mouthed silently, against the glass. ‘It’s not that I don’t see him in you, or that I do—

‘—it’s that I don’t see him, in myself.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> For DAY IV: Simple Modern AU, based on this [ fanart](https://twitter.com/_Kaixxxb/status/1123582264346988544/photo/1). Happy KNK Summer event 2020 everyone~~


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